PSCO's duties

The City of London Police Force has now employed Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) for three years, with numbers swelling year on year.  Our recruits are from a wide range of experience and background and the Force also benefits from those with additional language skills such as Bengali and Spanish. 

The role of PCSO has developed over the last year and PCSOs are now tasked each day by a dedicated sergeant, who deploys them to particular areas to deter offences such as shoplifting and anti social behaviour.  PCSOs are also tasked with collecting CCTV footage as part of investigations, taking basic witness and victim statements and attending crime scenes to take the initial report. 

PCSOs are allocated to a particular cluster area made up of several wards and they work with the ward officers and crime reduction officers on community problems and priorities.  Each officer is also allocated an area of particular responsibility with each cluster having a dedicated PCSO for dealing with licensing issues, running the Shop Watch scheme and helping with rough sleeping issues.  This has resulted in some PCSOs developing a particular interest and expertise in an area of work.

Some PCSOs have now been trained to use defibrillators and are often the first on scene when this equipment is needed in a medical emergency.  We also have a number of PCSOs on bikes who assist police at incidents and are able to cover ground quickly, increasing the visibility and number of patrols across the City.